Why it took me 3 Attempts & 9 Years to pass CFA Level 2 ?

In this post, you will come to know about my journey of clearing CFA Level 2. Why it took me three attempts and 9 years to qualify level 2 of the CFA Certification Exams? Let’s discuss that.

Lost interest in CFA
The simplest and the easiest explanation is that I had lost all interest in the worth of CFA certification in my profile. I was into teaching. I was teaching physics. My career was not in finance. That is a big reason.

Apart from that, my 2 failed attempts were also characterised by my inefficiency or deficiency in the way of studying for this exam.

Schweser:
First inefficiency was complete reliance on schweser. Schweser is a CFA Institute Prep Provider. I completely relied on schweser for all the preparation and that is a suboptimal strategy. Schweser must only be referred for Revision and that too in the initial stages of the preparation because revision comes in two-three stages. There are stages of revision. The initial revision has to be done through schweser.

Problem Solving:
The second inefficiency from my side was solving a lot of problems. I practiced a lot of problems without understanding the concepts, that is not going to help you. Internalising the concepts and solving a lot of problems, both are needed. You cannot skip either of them.

Read a lot:
Third inefficiency was trying to read everything and remember everything of the CFA curriculum. My attempt to remember everything which was written in the CFA curriculum was a big mistake from my side. That is humanly not possible. The better approach is to get the essence of whatever is written because CFA curriculum is designed for people coming from different walks of life and all of them want to get into finance with the help of CFA certification. You need to cover each and everything written and prepare your concepts according to the type of questions which CFA is going to ask you.

So, before you get into the CFA program, try to get motivated for the program. If you are not having any worth or value for the certification, you will ultimately fumble. Even if you do not commit any kind of mistake in preparation, your lack of motivation will always be a hindrance.

 

Passing CFA Level 2 in 9 Years after clearing CFA Level One in 15 Days - Why I took 9 years & 3 attempts for CFA L2

9 Years of Wait!
Clearing an exam in 1st Attempt is always special & worth mentioning.
For me clearing Level 2 of CFA exam took 9 years.
Of Course, I didn't take 9 attempts, It was put on the back burner all this time!



The journey started in 2012 when my interest in finance was at its peak. CFA certification seemed the next best logical step. I registered for the exam & studied bits & pieces from the material till the last few weeks of the December Level 1 (2012) exam. 

I understood that this pace of studying is not going to push me forward to level 2, I took a two weeks leave before the exam, studied like crazy. 
Lo and behold, when the results came in January 2013, it upped by confidence. I calculated that if I can pass level 1 in 15 days, I can very well pass level 2 in 4.5 months and 1 year for level 3 would be a walk in the park!

I missed the passing score for level 2 in 2013(June) by a whisker.
I didn't lose hope, I started preparing for level 2 of 2014(June). Then, life happened. I lost interest in the certification. How foolhardy I was, that I did't defer my Level 2 exams. With no reasonable preparation, I wasted another attempt & closed the CFA chapter of my life for good.

I moved on with life, with different jobs, different phases of life. I got married. I started preparing for Data Science & Finance careers, this led me to Masters in Quantitative Economics at Indian Statistical Institute (ISI, Kolkata).

Thankfully, I became a Data Scientist.
As time rolled on, I registered for CFA level 2 again!
And, I passed CFA Level 2 Exam convincingly!
After 9 years!

This achievement was made possible by the unrelenting support of my wife.

You can watch the video below to understand what didn't work for me. Why I took 3 attempts. Things which could be very useful for you

Role of Quant or Maths & Ethics in CFA Level 1 exam - Almost One-third

When you spend a lot of your dollars in an exam with ~43% pass rate, you need to grab all the low hanging fruits first. Put in other words, apply the Pareto principle and find the smallest possible subject area with greatest weightage in the exam; which is CFA level 1 in our case.

Let's look at the weightage for all the 10 subjects or topics for CFA level 1:

Topic	Exam Weight
Ethical and Professional Standards	15-20%
Quantitative Methods	8-12%
Economics	8-12%
Financial Reporting and Analysis	13-17%
Corporate finance	8-12%
Equity Investments	10-12%
Fixed Income	10-12%
Derivatives	5-8%
Alternative Investments	5-8%
Portfolio Management	5-8%

It's clear that Ethics is the most important standalone topic. Other topics have dependency amongst themselves and are also heavy conceptually. Also, if you had to pick out the companion to Ethics, it's obvious that 'Quantitative Methods' would be your best bet. As, Quants or Maths is also a standalone topic and easy to cover in less time. Obviously, this won't be true for a lot of people!

If we combine 'Quantitative Methods' & 'Ethical and Professional Standards' we get a weightage of 23-32% or in other words Maths & Ethics covers almost 1/3rd of the CFA level 1 curriculum. 

If I was a Level 1 aspirant, I would first try to get a grip on these topics!